In component mounting onto a board performed by a component mounter, the mounting order for the components needs be determined before the component mounting. In a component mounting order determination method, the mounting order is determined with the aim of minimizing the time duration from the start of mounting of components until the completion of mounting of all components. However, in a round robin method in which all possible component mounting orders are generated and then the optimal component mounting order is acquired, the processing time necessary for determining the optimal component mounting order increases as the number of mounting points for the components increases, so that it is difficult to determine the optimal component mounting order within a practical time.
Thus, as a method for determining the optimal component mounting order within a practical time, a method employing a greedy algorithm has been proposed (see, for example, Patent Reference 1).
Patent Reference 1: Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 7-176891